Humidity is water in the air and how much of it there is for a given area or space (What Is HUMIDITY?

What Does HUMIDITY Mean? HUMIDITY Meaning - How to Pronounce HUMIDITY?, n.d.) and is the
following video is a great primer for those who don't want to skip ahead to chapter in our text book to
dive deeper: https://youtu.be/BchJlIDjNFU. Water has three forms which are solid, liquid and gas (C
Donald Ahrens & Henson, 2022). Water is everywhere and it floats around us in its gaseous or vapor
form along with oxygen and other gases such as nitrogen. If you could see individual water molecules in
a bowl of water for example, you'd see water molecules floating out of the bowl through evaporation
and returning through condensation. The same is true all around us and the amount of water in the air is
affected by wind, air pressure and temperature to name just a few forces. Evaporation occurs more
actively in hotter weathers as the molecules are moving around faster and are less likely to settle onto
any surface. However, in cooler temperatures water molecules slow down and begin to settle through
condensation.

In Aviation humidity can affect aircraft oxygen servicing operations by maintenance crews trying
to service liquid oxygen in tropical islands with high temperatures (N. Buckwalter, personal
communication, September 14, 2022). Liquid oxygen is called LOX in aircraft maintenance and oxygen in
its liquid form is stored at -297.3 degrees Fahrenheit. When the hose of a LOX cart is connected to an
aircraft for servicing in hot tropical island conditions the water molecules in the air transfer from a
gaseous state directly to a solid state through a process called sublimination upon coming into contact
with the cold surface of the LOX hose nozzle and the result is the water in the air forming a permanent
bond of solid ice between the LOX hose nozzle and the aircraft LOX servicing orifice. I had the displeasure
of experiencing this phenomenon personally and the bond was nearly permanent. I had to tap the nozzle
with a tool to weaken the ice so that I could twist it off again.

References

Buckwalter, N. (2022, September 14). Module 1 Air Out There [Word Document Module 1 Air Out There].

C Donald Ahrens, & Henson, R. (2022). Meteorology today : an introduction to weather, climate and the
environment. Cengage.

What is HUMIDITY? What does HUMIDITY mean? HUMIDITY meaning - How to pronounce HUMIDITY?
(n.d.). Www.youtube.com. Retrieved September 14, 2022, from https://youtu.be/BchJlIDjNFU

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